Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Trakar]

Solar heating is relatively small in the winter due to sun angle and reduced hours of daylight, so though it rejects heat all year, it rejects most in the summer and the savings easily overcome any additional fuel required in the winter months.

Not if your summers aren't hot enough to demand much air-conditioning. I rarely use air conditioning. Maybe a few hours a day for no more than a few weeks a year cumulatively,...of course, that may increase over the coming century.

 

[Trakar]

...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/04/global-warming-china-air-pollution_n_889897.html...

More pop-sci political bloggery. No wonder people have such a poor grasp of science.

 

[Warmer1]

So I finally Googled white roofs after hearing that the US energy secretary was promoting the idea and found this article at Stanford.

"Urban 'heat island' effect is only a small contributor to global warming, and white roofs don't help to solve the problem, say Stanford researchers"

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/october/urban-heat-islands-101911.html

I thought white roofs might help?

 

[Trakar]

I've read multiple times that the cooling that ended in the late seventies is now attributed to pollution. The same sort of pollution that China is now pumping out, in such quantities it's the reason for no warming since 1998...

Try reading from higher quality, legitimate, mainstream *science* sources.

 

[uke2se]

I've read multiple times that the cooling that ended in the late seventies is now attributed to pollution. The same sort of pollution that China is now pumping out, in such quantities it's the reason for no warming since 1998.

But, it's pretty clear the consensus in regards to what will happen is as nebulous as the consensus over what did happen already. None of this is giving much reason to have faith in the dire predictions about the horrors of warming.

It may turn out the same as the population bomb, and the dozen or so other dire predictions of how the future will be bad.

So, despite being showed that there was no consensus about global cooling in the 1970s in the scientific press, and an overwhelming number of articles predicting global warming, you are still going to go with this?

The consensus about AGW isn't "nebulous". It is quite clear and crisp. Does it surprise you that climatologists know more today than they did in the 1970s?

 

[uke2se]

I seemed to have touched a nerve in regards to the ideas being bandied about in the seventies, as to what to do if the cooling didn't stop.

Harbors were unusable, people were trapped by snow, the temperatures had been falling for so long, there was even a huge report to congress about it. The scientists who said it was pollution, combined with volcanoes, it turns out they were right.

I also remember when Pinatubo went off, and the whole world cooled down. Even the experts were shocked at how quickly the warming began again, after the short lived sulfur particles were cleaned out of the atmosphere.

That the warming trend stopped, and the sun has gone quiet (another thing the predictions about were 100% wrong it seems), it makes sense with the huge increase in coal use from China, that warming would be stalled.

The irony is it seems the people claiming this years record cold is due to warming, can't also be right, if there isn't warming. That there is argument over the global mean, that casts some serious doubt about the state of climate science in the world today.

"Record cold"?

Weather isn't climate.

The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for January 2012 was the 19th warmest on record at 12.35°C (54.23°F), which is 0.35°C (0.63°F) above the 20th century average of 12.0°C (53.6°F).

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/

The reason you believe to have "touched a nerve" regarding the 1970s is that it is such a commonly used denialist talking point despite having been thouroughly debunked.

 

[lomiller]

I've read multiple times that the cooling that ended in the late seventies is now attributed to pollution.

There was no cooling in the 70’s. There is cooling during the 40’s which may be attributable to the massive increase in industrial production, changes in how temperature measurements are taken or something else entirely. It may even be that it was a case of the 30’s being abnormally warm and the 40’s were simply a return to slightly below normal. (Most likely it’s a combination of all these things.)

After this cooling in the 40’s temperatures are fairly constant until the mid 70’s but this is consistent with the known radiative forcings over that period.

But, it's pretty clear the consensus in regards to what will happen is as nebulous as the consensus over what did happen already.

Neither of these is particularly nebulous

 

[lomiller]

I
The irony is it seems the people claiming this years record cold is due to warming, can't also be right, if there isn't warming. That there is argument over the global mean, that casts some serious doubt about the state of climate science in the world today.

What record cold? 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20120119/

The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA scientists. The finding continues a trend in which nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000.

I
That there is argument over the global mean,

No there isn't. Since the math errors found in the UAH satellite data 10 years ago all the major instrumental records have been in close agreement. (Within reason of course, Satellite temperature records measure troposphere temperatures while weather stations measure surface temperatures, which while similar are not the same thing.)

 

[Piggy]

I seemed to have touched a nerve in regards to the ideas being bandied about in the seventies, as to what to do if the cooling didn't stop.

If you think you've "touched a nerve", you aren't listening.

Your ideas are being debunked, not gasped over.

Your assertions are merely incorrect. In fact, they're standard bogus objections which have long been debunked, but which somehow keep getting brought up anyway.

 

[r-j]

If you think you've "touched a nerve", you aren't listening.

Clearly my statement that "I remember black soot being spread on ice, to melt it, was talked about in the seventies.", was enough to set off some sort of reaction.

Wait, what I actually wrote was:

I remember in the seventies the talk about spreading black soot on the arctic to cause it to melt, to stop the coming ice age. They also talked about using nuclear bombs to blow up ice and change the global balance, to stop an ice age.

When I provided evidence, after somebody asked, that such things were indeed being discussed, the tune changed to some other thing.

Your ideas are being debunked, not gasped over.

And that is what I call denier mentality. It's like there is some sort pf battle with note cards, and the two sides have canned responses to use, rather than using critical thinking in a discussion.

Edited by Gaspode: 

Edited for moderated thread.

 

[CapelDodger]

The scientific world is starting to get a handle on cloud feedback, it seems.

Cloud changes may lower global temperature
http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/news/template/news_item.jsp?cid=466683

Research from The University of Auckland on changes in cloud height in the decade to 2010 has provided the first hint of a cooling mechanism that may be in play in the Earth’s climate.

Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the analysis of the first ten years of data from the NASA Terra satellite revealed an overall trend of decreasing cloud height. Global average cloud height declined by around 1 per cent over the decade, or around 30 to 40 metres. Most of the reduction was due to fewer clouds occurring at very high altitudes.

Only ten years' data, but that's a start.

The results to date reveal a complex pattern of decreases in cloud altitude across some regions of the globe and increases in others, with the El Niño / La Niña phenomenon in the Pacific producing the strongest effect and greatest variation from year to year. After taking into account all these differences, however, the overall trend was of decreasing cloud height from 2000 to 2010.

I expect this to feature in denier-world. OK, they used adjusted figures, but I don't expect that to be a problem in this particular case. Lindzen may well call this confirmation of his notorious Iris.

From ScienceDaily's piece on this :

A consistent reduction in cloud height would allow Earth to cool to space more efficiently, reducing the surface temperature of the planet and potentially slowing the effects of global warming. This may represent a "negative feedback" mechanism -- a change caused by global warming that works to counteract it. "We don't know exactly what causes the cloud heights to lower," says Davies. "But it must be due to a change in the circulation patterns that give rise to cloud formation at high altitude."

Of course this is not a negative feedback for those who believe there's been no warming since 1998. For them it must be an independent phaenomenon which may (who can say for certain?) threaten us with an Ice Age.

 

[CapelDodger]

I seemed to have touched a nerve in regards to the ideas being bandied about in the seventies, as to what to do if the cooling didn't stop.

Harbors were unusable, people were trapped by snow, the temperatures had been falling for so long, there was even a huge report to congress about it.

You're talking about the US, yes? No offence meant, but US Americans do tend towards the hysterical. I'm sure the older (nay, greatest) generations weren't reticent about how much worse it was in their days.

I remember the winter of '62-63 (in the UK) and that really was cold, for a very long time. Not an enormous amount of snow but it just didn't go away for months. The (UK again) winters just after The War were, I was told, much worse. Young people today don't know they're born, most of 'em.

The scientists who said it was pollution, combined with volcanoes, it turns out they were right.

Colour me amazed.

I also remember when Pinatubo went off, and the whole world cooled down. Even the experts were shocked at how quickly the warming began again, after the short lived sulfur particles were cleaned out of the atmosphere.

Unless by "expert" you mean TV weather-presenters, no, they weren't. The Hansen at al climate model as run against the observed releases within months and pretty much nailed what happened after.

That the warming trend stopped, and the sun has gone quiet (another thing the predictions about were 100% wrong it seems), it makes sense with the huge increase in coal use from China, that warming would be stalled.

I can see you're making "warming has stopped" hay while the Sun shines weakly, and that's a sound policy. La Nina is fading, and who's to say when her leedle brother will arrive? Of course you can then blame the warmth on El Nino, but that'll take 1998 out of your arsenal.

The irony is it seems the people claiming this years record cold is due to warming, can't also be right, if there isn't warming.

You're not referring to the US here, obviously, and I know it's not the UK, so where is this "record cold"? By "this year" you do mean 2012, don't you?

That there is argument over the global mean, that casts some serious doubt about the state of climate science in the world today.

There may be confusion about it in your mind, and there's certainly denial out there that there's any such thing anyway, but there's really not much doubt about it. To the extent that there is uncertainty, 1998, 2005 and 2010 were all equally warm. 2011 was the warmest La Nina year. 2012 is looking good to be an ENSO-neutral year. While we wait that out the 2012 Arctic melt season will will divert us (by tradition, on a separate thread).

 

[Halsu]

Try reading from higher quality, legitimate, mainstream *science* sources.

Actually, the cooling effect of Chinese aerosol emissions pretty much is mainstream science. I recall reading about them offsetting some of the warming in the last decades, from a source i considered trustworthy at the time, but one which i unfortunately was unable to find again for linking right now. I did find a paper that touches the subject with google scholar though:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135223100900137X

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Who talked about either of these things?

Steven Schneider. Here. (segment three).

 

[Trakar]

Actually, the cooling effect of Chinese aerosol emissions pretty much is mainstream science. I recall reading about them offsetting some of the warming in the last decades, from a source i considered trustworthy at the time, but one which i unfortunately was unable to find again for linking right now. I did find a paper that touches the subject with google scholar though:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135223100900137X

It isn't the science that is the problem, it is the portrayal and characterization of the science when mixed with fallacies such as "no warming since 1998..." that leads to the presentation of pseudoscience instead of the discussion of actual mainstream science. A common problem when people try to get their science understandings from the dregs of political bloggery instead of more rigorous legitimate scientific sources.

 

[Trakar]

Steven Schneider. Here. (segment three).

Again, and at the risk of becoming reptitive: "Try reading from higher quality, legitimate, mainstream *science* sources." instead of hack job pseudoscience crockery from political bloggery.

 

[r-j]

Steven Schneider. Here. (segment three).

I like how he states it might not be a good idea to try and actually change the temperature of the planet. Unexpected consequences and all that.

But did he really say, "On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." (attributed to Stephen Schneider)

That site looks like a political blog. Why is the temperature a matter of belief?

 

[Piggy]

And that is what I call denier mentality. It's like there is some sort pf battle with note cards, and the two sides have canned responses to use, rather than using critical thinking in a discussion.

Yeah, but one side has "canned responses" consisting of clear evidence, the other has "canned responses" consisting of debunked claims.

 

[lomiller]

Clearly my statement that "I remember black soot being spread on ice, to melt it, was talked about in the seventies.", was enough to set off some sort of reaction.

Wait, what I actually wrote was:

When I provided evidence, after somebody asked, that such things were indeed being discussed, the tune changed to some other thing.

So you remember un-named people looking for solutions to problems the scientists agreed did not exist, what now?

Whatever your remember in the 70’s the scientific community already agreed that warming not cooling was the problem so clearly you are either not remembering correctly or were simply taken in by kooks. This isn’t you touching a nerve, it’s you making a serious logic error and not being willing to accept the error when it’s pointed out to you.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Again, and at the risk of becoming reptitive: "Try reading from higher quality, legitimate, mainstream *science* sources." instead of hack job pseudoscience crockery from political bloggery.

Do you claim that Schneider did not say what he is here represented as saying?